Attorney general’s office says FOIA improvement proposal coming soon

Wednesday

Apr 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMApr 29, 2009 at 12:46 AM

The Illinois attorney general’s office says it expects by week’s end to unveil revised bills designed to improve public access to government records. While Lisa Madigan’s staff tweaks a FOIA rewrite and pushes a bill creating a public-access counselor who would help referee disputes over government records, groups on all sides of the issue are waiting anxiously.

Bruce Rushton

The Illinois attorney general’s office says it expects by week’s end to unveil revised bills designed to improve public access to government records.

“We will have a draft, likely, within the next day or two to share,” said Cara Smith, deputy chief of staff for Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who has been promising to fix the state Freedom of Information Act since taking office six years ago. “These bills are our highest priority. They have been our highest priority since Jan. 1.”

While Madigan’s staff tweaks a FOIA rewrite and pushes a bill creating a public-access counselor who would help referee disputes over government records, groups on all sides of the issue are waiting anxiously.

“We keep hearing … there’ll be some changes forthcoming,” said Dave Bennett, executive director of the Illinois Press Association. “We haven’t seen anything for six weeks. I’m almost embarrassed to say we have no idea what’s going to happen to this bill — none. We don’t know whether we can support it or not, because we haven’t seen it.”

The IPA says the state’s public-records law is toothless, vague and full of loopholes. On the other side is the Illinois Municipal League, which has opposed measures designed to improve access to public records. But in this case, the groups agree on at least one thing: The law needs to be changed.

“I’ve worked with it (the Freedom of Information Act) for 20-some years, and it’s only gotten progressively harder,” said Roger Huebner, general counsel for the Municipal League. “The solution is making the thing something people can read and understand.”

Like Bennett, Huebner said the Municipal League, which spent hours talking with Madigan’s staff about reform proposals, hasn’t heard from the attorney general’s staff for six weeks.

Whether the Municipal League will agree with what Madigan comes up with is a mystery.

Huebner objected to several provisions in a bill Madigan floated more than a month ago. While reformers say the law needs penalties, Huebner said criminal penalties would be going too far.

He also objected to a proposal that would bar public agencies from claiming exemptions to the law if they don’t respond to requests within five days. Requiring public agencies to pay legal fees for requesters who sue and win might not be a good idea, he said.

Overall, he said, the initial proposal was too lawyer-centric.

“We believe the act is primarily used by lay people,” Huebner said.

Dave Lundy, acting director of the Better Government Association in Chicago, said pleasing the Municipal League will prove difficult.

“I know they (Madigan’s staff) are trying to figure out what won’t make the Municipal League apoplectic,” Lundy said. “Nothing’s going to make them happy. … The FOIA laws in Illinois and their implementation are disgraceful. That’s not an accident.”

Smith said the attorney general’s staff has heard from the inspector general, state’s attorneys, municipal clerks, universities and the city of Chicago.

“This is what I’m doing morning, day and night,” Smith said. “Anyone who’s worked on a bill of this magnitude, somewhere along the line you get extremely frustrated because it takes too long. But the process actually works. … I believe we will end up with a bill that is better than the bill that was introduced because we’re being forced to consider different things.”

Smith declined to go into specifics, saying the attorney general doesn’t want to release a draft while waiting for input from interested parties. But something big will happen, she predicted.

“There’s no question that significant reform legislation is going to come out of this session, and reforms to FOIA are a big part of that,” Smith said.

Bruce Rushton can be reached at (217) 788-1542 or bruce.rushton@sj-r.com.

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